Being a good stepparent can be really challenging.
You’re entering the life of a kid who likely already has a parental figure they see as your competition. Maybe it’s a tumultuous time. You never know what terms your partner is on with their ex.
Or maybe there is no ex, and the kid is dealing with a much deeper loss. The safest thing to do is to approach everyone in the situation with love and try to build a family.
Or you can do what this woman is doing, and try to divide your family. Redditor u/foilfun posted a screenshot in subreddit r/iamatotalpieceofsh*t of a Facebook post from a mom asking for Photoshop help. It seems she is an actual evil stepmom. She wrote:
“Is there anyway y’all could remove the kid to the right in these pictures. He’s my stepson and I love these pictures of us together but I also didn’t get any good ones with just two without him. Also removed him from the full family pictures, please. Thanks in advance.”
Thanks for what? No one’s doing this sh*t.
The post received so much backlash, she edited it later to try and explain herself. It only sounds even worse:
“EDIT: I love my stepson but I do want some without him in them. I already posted these ones but I just want to have it both ways.”
Well, lady, you can’t. He’s your family. Below are the photos, and you can see the may sad, angry and shocked Facebook reactions under them.
Many Reddit commenters shared stories about their stepparents doing similar things, and how horribly painful it was to feel excluded from their own family. User smsjohnson2 wrote:
“This happened to me – i’m 30 now. Family were discussing the upcoming family photos, and my sister suggested we move the date so I could be involved too. My step-mum said it was ‘for family only’, and said it was best to leave it as it was.”
An actual stepmom responded under the handle kitkatsaremyweakness, admitting that she has gotten pics with just her bio kids, but they’re not her favorites:
“I’m so sorry. I’m a stepmom and while it can sometimes be awkward, I always tried my best to make it less so. Whenever we did family photos we made sure to do a bunch of combos and individual pictures to avoid any hurt feelings. We also had two extra kids that lived with us on and off for about 6 years (family friends, kids didn’t get along with parents, parents were not great parents). So we would do all the kids, just girls, just boys, oldest with youngest, middles, me with all boys, all girls, all kids, husband doing the same. I always thought I would want the pics with just “my” kids but the shots with all the kids were my favorites. They were also the most honest and true. Nothing like 5 goofy kids ages 1-16 and big smiles to make a wall look good.”
What really matters is happy kids being cared for by all the adults in their lives. With that in mind, someone made a better edit of the pics taking the mom out completely:
Don’t be the stepparent no one wants to remember.